


A Bruise Would Be Dishonor

by avesnongrata



Category: We(l)come Back
Genre: F/F, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avesnongrata/pseuds/avesnongrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mali and Tessa prepare to fight to the death. <br/>Again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bruise Would Be Dishonor

**Author's Note:**

> This scene is inspired by Act 3, scene 6 of Shakespeare & Fletcher’s _The Two Noble Kinsmen_.

> _"_ I would have nothing hurt thee but my sword.  
> A bruise would be dishonor."  
>   _-_ _The Two Noble Kinsmen_ (3.6.121-122)

* * *

 

By the time Mali steps out of the shower and towels herself off, she at least feels cleaner, if not quite refreshed. The water was hot enough, but the pressure was not much better than in her crappy apartment back in KC. With all the resources newly at her disposal she could have opted for a swankier hotel, but this one is mostly vacant and well off the beaten track.

Besides, it was a good deal for one night. Some habits die hard.

Tucking her towel securely around her chest, she pushes open the bathroom door. The steam from the shower dissipates quickly in the stale, over-conditioned air of the main room, sending a shiver up the back of her neck. She crosses the room and rummages in her bag for something clean-ish to put--

Mali hits the floor, rolls, and comes up shooting before her conscious mind even registers the itch of the crosshairs on the back of her skull. Her shot flies wide right, lodging harmlessly in the bland wallpaper across the room.

Tessa doesn’t so much as blink - not at the bullet singing past her head, not at the damp towel no longer wrapped around Mali’s torso. She keeps her own gun steady, trained directly between her target’s wide eyes.

“Your grip is wrong.”

“What?” Mali’s heart hammers in her ears as her fingers tighten around the grip of her gun, still such an unfamiliar weight in her hand. This is so very far from how she pictured this moment happening that her mind reels.

_No. Focus._

Any chance she had of breaking this godforsaken cycle vanished the moment she let her guard down. This ends tonight. This ends with her naked and haphazardly sprawled on a rough motel room carpet, apparently. That sounds about right.

This ends, and then it all starts over again.

_Fuck_.

"Your grip is wrong," Tessa repeats, enunciating more clearly in her rich, accented English. "That's why you missed. A weapon like that is too powerful for a one-handed grip." She separates her hands just enough to give Mali a good look at their positioning, then snaps them back together around the grip of her gun. Her movements are fluid and precise, guided by many lifetimes of muscle memory.

Mali clenches her jaw, fear or humiliation tinting her cheeks red. "So I blew my chance. You win. Why haven't you killed me yet?"

Tessa only stares at her for a few long moments, then slowly lowers her weapon. "Not like this."

"Are you kidding me?" Mali gapes at her. "You fight your way clear across the planet just to track me down and kill me, and now you're just gonna stand there?"

Tessa cocks her head to one side, puzzled. "Do you want me to kill you?"

"No." The word sounds more petulant than defiant. She'll have to work on that.

"Then stand up. Put some clothes on. I want you to be ready."

Whatever Mali was expecting to hear, it isn't that. "Why?"

Tessa's shoulders slump as she sets her gun aside. "Do you really not remember why?"

Mali gets to her feet. Of course she remembers, but she doesn't really understand. She remembers Tessa -- well, not quite -- outflanking an army, spurring his horse hard to gain ground. She remembers the thunder of hooves and the bite of blades sharp as lightning, beautiful and dreadful at once. The t-shirt and shorts she tugs on feel dangerously light compared to the armor her memory conjures up; they do nothing to make her feel less naked.

"So I guess this is it?"

Tessa shakes her head slowly and brushes her hair away from her eyes. "Only if you're ready. This is inevitable, but that doesn't mean I have any intention of gunning you down like a mugging gone wrong. If one of us has to die by the other's hand, then I'm going to make damned sure that nothing else hurts you first." Her hands begin to shake, no more than a subtle tremor. She clenches them into fists at her sides and continues.

"You mean too much to me. You deserve better than that. It will be my bullet in your brain, my blade across your throat -- or yours across mine, however it happens this time around. But it won't be the grunts, and it _won't_ be your unpreparedness that ends your life this time. I owe you that much."

"What about you?" Mali argues, something like indignation pitching her voice a little too high. "Are you really going to fight me to the death with your hair falling in your eyes like that?" She's stalling. She knows she is. Tessa's hair is a stupid thing to worry about. Now that the initial fear for her life has dwindled, though, she's surprised to find that her concern is actually genuine.

"My hair is fine," Tessa insists, but the way she instinctively runs a hand through it gives her away. Mali raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. "Alright, fine, I've been meaning to trim it, but I haven't found time. Too late now, I guess."

"Let me help?" Mali rolls her eyes when Tessa hesitates to respond. "What's the matter? Don't trust me? You had the chance to kill me, but you didn't; I'm not going to kill you with a pair of scissors."

To her amazement, Tessa cracks a smile. "Maybe I'm worried you'll do a shit job and I'll look terrible when they come for the bodies."

"Hey," Mali protests, crossing her arms in front of her. "Until I woke up, I was dead broke all the time. I can't remember the last time I paid actual money for a haircut. I've gotten pretty good at this DIY stuff."

Tessa catches herself midway through sweeping her hair out of her eyes again. With a huff and an amused shake of her head, she caves. "Fine. I suppose it's only fair."

In the silence that follows, they only stare at each other for a long few minutes before either one of them can move. At last, Tessa sinks into the chair by the writing desk and Mali turns to rummage through her toiletries for her pair of shears. She's well aware that Tessa is watching her every movement, but she does her best to pretend she doesn't notice.

Mali reaches out, shears in one hand, the other pausing in midair as if Tessa is some feral creature that might strike at her if she moves too close too quickly. The image vanishes entirely the moment her fingers sift through Tessa's hair, though. The feeling is strange and familiar at once, inviting enough that Mali keeps touching, even after Tessa's eyes fall shut.

It's much easier to move without Tessa's eyes burning into her. Mali manages to bring the shears up and starts snipping away at the longer strands. Tessa stays remarkably still, hardly even twitching as Mali finishes with the hair that was in her eyes, then moves on to the short-cropped sides. She circles around her, cleaning up around her hairline, making sure everything is even. Well, as even as she can get without clippers. It'll have to do.

At some point Tessa opens her eyes again, and Mali finds herself stuck staring.

"Your eyes…" Tessa trails off.

Mali’s cheeks start to burn, but she wills herself to keep snipping at her hair as if that intent stare isn’t going right through her. "What about them?"

"They are two different colors."

"Yeah, I know."

"They're lovely." Tessa brushes her fingers lightly over Mali's cheek. "They were both brown when I saw you last."

"And yours were blue," Mali breathes. She remembers that too, remembers the blood pouring over the handle of the knife he'd twisted between his ribs. The light going out of them killed him long before the fall off that roof did.

Tessa reaches for her hands, pulling her back out of her memory. The scissors fall forgotten from her grip as the distance between them suddenly vanishes and her lips meet Tessa’s with enough intensity to drive the air from her lungs. Lifetimes of kisses just like this one come thundering back into her mind, laced with phantom traces of blood, gunpowder, and salt. They both know how all of this ends, but for now they’re content to cling to each other and forget.

When at last they part, Mali tucks a last errant strand of Tessa’s hair back into place. "There. Now you are perfect."

Tessa says nothing. She only watches as Mali bends to pick the shears up off the floor then set them down on the desk next to the gun. Her gun. The one she’s moments away from emptying into the woman in front of her. Again.

"Here. Take this one.” Tessa offers Mali the very gun she’d aimed at her head earlier. “I've used it for years. It might level the playing field a little more."

Mali dismisses her with a shake of her head and a small, sad smile. "Keep it. Your life depends on it too."

A sudden pounding on the door has Tessa instinctively leveling her gun at Mali’s sternum, and Mali follows suit, heart pounding. There’s no way either of them can miss. Not with so little distance between them.

Tessa’s eyes are wide, almost pleading, as they lock with Mali’s. "We're out of time. Are you ready?"

"We don't have to do this," Mali insists. Somehow her voice is much calmer than she feels. They’ve had this conversation before.

"Yes, we do. If we don't, those grunts out there will finish the job."

"No! You know I'm right. You want out as badly as I do. I know you do."

Muffled shouts join the banging on the other side of the door. Tessa adjusts her grip, her knuckles going white. "There is no way out."

"You don't know that."

"We've tried! We've failed every time."

"Maybe this is the life we finally get it right. What have we got to lose? Our lives?” Mali takes a step forward, then another, until the muzzle of Tessa’s gun presses into her chest. “We'll just find each other again in the next. It's what we do."

Tessa’s breath leaves her in a rush, and she tucks her gun back into the waistband of her pants. "It's what we do."

The hinges are starting to come loose from the doorframe. They really are out of time. Mali stashes the last of her things in her bag and hefts it up on her shoulder as Tessa hurls the chair through the window. With a crooked smile, she takes Mali's hand and together they leap past the broken glass, out into the night.


End file.
